Fourteen games! And still almost three full days to go. Remember, the deadline is Friday's midnight, my time.

1. I like the way the terms are shaking out.

fight pain - alienation R us; I'm not sure whether "fight" is as flexible a term to me as it seems across the gamesfight cosmos - mortal kombaaaaat! [music]fight sphere - nothing? (sniffle - come on, guys!!)pain cosmos - excellent diversity of interpreting "cosmos," this is the category that personally interests me most (like "rat girlfriend" last time)pain sphere - clearly Dante's categorycosmos sphere - with only one game to go by, I'm not sure, but it's not surprising that this combination would be Color Central

2. I'm happy to see both new contributors and returning ones. I hope this ends up being the general pattern as the rounds go by. And yes, I'm all set with the terms-combinations for quite a few rounds to come.

3. A dozen or so games is just right. At fourteen at the moment, I'm anticipating just a few more, which is beefy. Apparently it's working!

4. I am really happy to see people posting threads before my comments get going, as well as the excellent effort that some folks are making toward one another's games. That indicates pride and interest beyond simply participating in the awards contest. However, nothing beats actual play; I'm looking forward to more of those for Ronnies entries and their continued development.

5. Finally - anyone who's not involved in the contest - I formally request that you nominate yourself as an informal judge. Pick a game you like, regardless of whether I've posted about it yet, regardless of how I rate it. Provide comments in threads about it, or talk about how you'd like to see it published, physically, or best yet, play the thing and post about it.

A short question though, if a game unintentionally incorporates a third term, does that disqualify it? If one were to do a Cosmic/Sphere game that featured fighting or pain in some capacity does that create a problem? If so it makes the "use two terms" interesting in that it would also create terms to avoid.

I did see that. Does that mean that any kind of fighting (bare nuckles combat, sparring with weapons, emotional brawling, mental dueling or any type of conflict based contest) would disqualify a Pain/Cosmos Pain/Sphere or Cosmos/Sphere game? Is it an appeal to create a pacifist game or is it simply discouraging specific fighting/combat mechanics.

The key issue is centrality. A game based on "fight cosmos" might have pain in it, or perhaps narrated during play for some reason or another, but that pain cannot be playing a thematic, content, or mechanics type role that's comparable to the two central ones. How much is comparable, i.e., too much? That's for me to decide.

That said, however, I do strongly recommend thinking in terms of avoidance. A game's focus is immeasurably improved by saying to oneself, "it does not concern elephants," arguably more so than by saying "this one's gotta have monkeys." That's why I included both inclusion and exclusion into the contest rules.

So avoiding, even deliberately excluding the two "not used" terms is both safer in terms of the contest (a minor concern) and more constructive in terms of powerful game design (a major one).

I submitted my project entitle "Celestial Sphere: The Fight for the Cosmos in the Age of Pain" So yeah, I basically rearranged the Challenge words until I got all of them to fit into a title. In the game you play a constellation sent to the mortal sphere to try and stop the chaos that is engulfing the Spheres of Reality.

I didn't manage to get everything I wanted into it. The editing was poor, there is not credits/ explanation page, no obligatory what is role-playing, and few pictures.

After coming up with the title I was surprised at how easy the game came along. The setting was pretty much described in the title. I needed to involve the archaic notion of the Celestial sphere in their some where. Originally I started with the concepts of astrologers summoning the powers of the constellations to wage a war to control reality, but eventually dropped that when I realized that it would be to hard mechanically to finish in twenty four hours, and I didn't want it to become a knock off of Witchcraft or Mage. (of course when the project was actually finished i realized that it came off as a bad white wolf rip off anyways, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead.) I decided to make the players the constellationss them selves, this meant I didn't have to define each constellation, and therefore the mechanics would be easier. Since Constellations were based on legends I decided that they were actually heroes from the Mortal sphere that were granted immortality so that they could provide guidance and hope for the earth.

Then came the back story. I knew I needed to include some sort of war, and an Age of Pain thanks to my title. The age of pain was pretty simple when I started thinking about the Celestial Sphere, and it's history. Early scientist believed that the heavens revolved around the earth in a celestial sphere until someone discovered that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Presto! I had my age of pain. In the beginning the Celestial Sphere DID revolve around the universe until it started to warp and become more chaotic. The war could be over the few remaining areas of normalcy, I thought at first, but then rejected the idea because it might lead the characters backstabbing each other. I decided that a horde of demons had some how broken thru to the celestial sphere, ala black holes.

I decided that the Constellations (I later dubbed them Celestials, because it sounded better) would be able to enter our Sphere of reality thru some means, and that the majority of the plot would have to revolve around the Mortal Sphere. This decision was made because I didn't have enough time to fully detail the Celestial Sphere as a setting (I think I ended up spending an entire paragraph on it) and most people know what the world around them is like.

Since most Constellations are aligned to a specific element I decided to make elemental based powers, but in the last seconds I changed the names of them to a planetary theme. I did this because I realized that I would not have enough time to explain why the classical elements held any sway over the Celestials, and gave me an excuse to add two more powers that I felt the game needed. This also opened the possibilities to hidden powers. I also made the decision that a player should be able to define one power for themselves. Personally I love it when the game allows me to input something unique into a setting, so I decided this was how my game would include this idea. Because I hate the "you can use this power X times per day" rules many games have I decided I would need a variable stat to limit the powers. I used manna mainly because everyone knows the term.

I used the standard eight stats (Physical, Mental, Social, Perception, Attack, Defense, Health, and Initiative) mainly because I could not think of anything more cleaver, and it was a system every ne could understand. I went with free-form skills because it saved me time and once again added some level of player interaction.

When deciding on a system to use I wanted to think of something that would feel heroic, and monumental, this is probably what stalled the creation process the longest. I could not think of anything that felt sufficiently Cosmic for along time. I nearly gave in and had the system be based on massive numbers of dice, but this idea gave me a better one. I realized that massive dice would be intimidating not only because of quantity but because of the sound they might make. This is when I got my idea for including a plastic cup to make the sound louder (I used the lame excuse that it made it easier to roll) and eventually decided to use coins because they were easier to get a hold of, and louder.

Once my mechanics were done, and my setting was vaguely outlined I went to work on the advancement system. I finished this rather quickly when I realized I already defined a variable stat that had was increased when the character did something Heroic. So manna became my games experience points, and cool power limiter. I'm not sure if that will make the game easier or more difficult, but it saved me time, and I was running out.

After putting the whole thing together I decided to check the competition out before I submitted it to make sure I wasn't copying anyone's idea. When I read 'Cosmic Combat' I almost tossed my finished product out, but decided that they were different enough that I should submit it anyways. After reviewing the other submissions I realized two things: one I had fifteen minutes before my deadline was up, so I didn't have anytime to do all the proper fluff and editing, and two there were some really good entries already. So I submitted as was and wrote a little hype for the other entries on the description. I hope people enjoy it.

PS: I got to say 'Today', 'Escape From Hell' (I love Dante's Inferno) and 'Reality Cop' are my favorite submissions so far. I hope one of them is declared the winner.